I'm a privacy pragmatist, writing about the intersection of law, technology, social media and our personal information. If you have story ideas or tips, e-mail me at khill@forbes.com. PGP key here.
These days, I'm a senior online editor at Forbes. I was previously an editor at Above the Law, a legal blog, relying on the legal knowledge gained from two years working for corporate law firm Covington & Burling -- a Cliff's Notes version of law school.
In the past, I've been found slaving away as an intern in midtown Manhattan at The Week Magazine, in Hong Kong at the International Herald Tribune, and in D.C. at the Washington Examiner. I also spent a few years traveling the world managing educational programs for international journalists for the National Press Foundation.
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Being a member of the Facebook founder’s family won’t protect you from having your privacy breached on the social network. On Tuesday night, Randi Zuckerberg — older sister to Facebook’s CEO — posted a photo from a family gathering to Facebook (of course), showing her sisters using Facebook’s new Snapchat-esque ’Poke’ app on their phones, with Mark Zuckerberg watching with a confused look on his face. It popped up on the Facebook newsfeed of mediaite Callie Schweitzer who subscribes to Zuckerberg. Assuming the photo was a public one, Schweitzer tweeted it to her nearly 40,000 Twitter followers. Zuckerberg was not pleased.

A not so merry Christmas for Randi Zuckerberg (Screenshot from my colleague
Ryan Mac)

“Not sure where you got this photo,” she tweeted at Schweitzer. “I posted it to friends only on FB. You reposting it to Twitter is way uncool.”

Schweitzer explained that the photo had popped up in her newsfeed. Zuckerberg then realized that she had fallen prey to Facebook’s complicated privacy setting machinations. Perhaps with the help of the Facebook expert at hand, Zuckerberg figured out what had happened: Schweitzer is friends with one of the people in the photo, and so was able to see the otherwise private photo because a friend was tagged in it.

Zuckerberg pulled back on her Internet road rage, and accepted Schweitzer’s apology in a tweet that she has since deleted:

Schweitzer graciously deleted the photo and tweet

By this point, of course, it was too late for the photo not to become news. Zuckerberg can at least comfort herself by remembering that she is not the first Zuckerberg to be flummoxed by Facebook’s privacy settings. Back in 2009, Mark Zuckerberg had his whole profile — including photos and his events calendar — go suddenly and dramatically public after a Facebook privacy setting overhaul that seemed to take him by surprise.

This is the difficulty of Facebook. Despite simplifications and “shortcuts,” the privacy settings are not always easily navigated. Sensitive information can unexpectedly leak. Even if you manage to master Facebook’s settings, your friends’ selections as to who can see their content may wind up undermining your privacy decisions.

Rather than faulting the social network, Randi Zuckerberg preferred pointing the finger elsewhere.

After deleting her exchange with Schweitzer, older sister Zuckerberg — who previously worked at Facebook and specializes in marketing – spun the privacy breach as Schweitzer’s fault. She offered a lesson in digital etiquette on Twitter: “Always ask permission before posting a friend’s photo publicly. It’s not about privacy settings. It’s about human decency.”

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Digital etiquette, if you want something to stay private, keep it off the internet. No matter how much security is out there, things can easily be seen by others you don’t want. So if you really don’t want something public, don’t post it.

“After deleting her exchange with Schweitzer, older sister Zuckerberg — who previously worked at Facebook and specializes in marketing – spun the privacy breach as Schweitzer’s fault. She offered a lesson in digital etiquette on Twitter: “Always ask permission before posting a friend’s photo publicly. It’s not about privacy settings. It’s about human decency.””

1. Why was she deleting the exchange at all? Is it because she was “less than decent” to begin with? The screen-cap with Schweitzer’s tweets all seem cordial, polite, and understanding/apologetic.

2. Her message about decency completely misses the point of what happened; someone thought they got a public photo and so they shared it with the public. This isn’t a friend sharing another friend’s photo unknowingly (since the source was Zuckerberg, not the friend tagged in the photo). So, while it’s polite to ask before sharing a friend’s photo, it would NOT have prevented this situation in the first place–because the two aren’t (Facebook) friends.

3. Here’s the decent thing: If you screw up, then own it, apologize, and attempt to make it right. Only one of the two people involved did this; the other one has a brother named Mark, who built a company devoted to making it ever easier to share (all) your information with people–on purpose or not.

Well said! Exactly as I was thinking…. that was kinda low of his sister to place the blame on the other user, when she didn’t think she was doing anything wrong (it is facebook culture after all!), especially after she also apologized… but then again, she had to make an example for anybody else that might do that…

The horror of it all reminds me of what losers without a life used to do with a photocopier and a pair of scissors before the streamlined day’s of desktop publishing. The finished results were not quite up to the professional standards of your local press cutting agency but then again — if you do want to live your life in RFID then you only have yourself to blame when you forget to pack an umbrella.

Digital Etiquette: If it has a “share” button, it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that the poster doesn’t mind it being shared. Learn about your brother’s privacy settings before tagging people next time.